JSkat

Welcome!

You want to play a round of Skat but your buddies don't have time?
You want to improve your playing skills without losing money?
You want to learn how to play Ramsch smarter than the others?

Then JSkat is the right choice for you!

JSkat is a free implementation of the German card game Skat in JavaTM.
You can play it on nearly every platform that runs a modern Java
Runtime Environment (at least Java 8). We know that it runs on
Windows, Linux and Mac OS with the JRE from Oracle, but we like to
hear from you, if it's playable on other platforms, too. We also like
to hear from you if you have problems running JSkat on your platform
of choice.

Who is behind JSkat

JSkat was created by Jan Schäfer. In the meantime several
other people contributed to JSkat. It's
a non profit project that steals a lot of our spare time. ;o) Our
goal is to develop a free computer Skat game that can play either
according to the official rules or with a customized special
ruleset that is often played in the pubs.

Current affairs

2017/01/23: JSkat 0.16 is out. This release adds support for
high resolution displays and multiple monitor setup. On the other
hand it's now possible to hide the toolbar buttons to have more space
on low resolution displays. The settings can now be saved either in
the users home directory or in the current working directory. This
makes it possible to carry around JSkat on your USB stick and have
your settings everywhere around. This release is the first JSkat
release that needs at least Java 8. The main window was ported to
JavaFX. Other parts of the GUI will follow in the next releases.
Several bug fixes have been done.

2015/07/13: JSkat 0.15 is out. This release enables the replay
of local skat games step by step to investigate every move after
finishing the game. Some bugfixes in game result calculation were
done. The GUI was also refreshed a bit. Unfortunately the AI players
are still very poor in their playing strength. So as always we
recommend to play on the International Skat Server (ISS).

2014/09/10: JSkat 0.14 is out. This release fixes annoying
bugs in AI players that would have played schwarz otherwise and
lead to preliminary ending of games. It's possibe to announce
Contra/Re if pub rules are activated. Only the random player
supports this right now. Unfortunately the AI players are still
very poor in their playing strength. So as always we recommend
to play on the International Skat Server (ISS). Optimisation of
the GUI for small screen sizes was done.

2013/11/02: JSkat 0.13 is out. This is mostly a bugfixing
release. We fixed a lot of the most annoying errors that caused
JSkat to freeze or behave strangely. There are new card sets to
choose in the options dialog.

2013/05/09: JSkat 0.12 is out. After a long time without
updates we bring you a new version. The AI player with neural
networks is starting to play meaningful. But there is still space
for improvements. That's why we still recommend to play against the
AI players on the International Skat Server (ISS).

2012/08/28: JSkat 0.11 is out. With this version the playing
on the International Skat Server (ISS) was improved. There is a new
AI player (Beta), that plays with algorithms.

2012/08/01: JSkat is also available for Android. The app was
developed by Daniel Loreck and Sascha Laurien using JSkat as base.
JSkat on Android can be installed throw the Google
Play Store.

2012/03/13: JSkat 0.10 is out. It's possible to play Ramsch
games now. This release includes many bugfixes and improved playing
strength of the computer players again.

2011/10/09: JSkat 0.9 is out. This release again includes
many bugfixes and improved playing strength of the computer
players.

2011/07/20: JSkat 0.8 is out. This release includes many
bugfixes for playing on the International Skat Server and a new AI
player that uses neural networks.

2011/05/23: The release is out: JSkat 0.7 is finished.
Please download this new version to play over the internet on the
International Skat Server against the strongest Skat AI players
known today. You can also play against other human players.

2011/04/05: There are new screenshots of the upcoming Version
0.7 for all people who are curious, how the new JSkat will look
like. We hope you will like it.

2011/03/26: JSkat is approaching the beta phase for version
0.7 in the near future. This version is a complete rewrite of JSkat
with new AI players and features. You will be able to play over the
internet on the International Skat Server against human players or
the strongest AI players known today.

2009/05/23: You are probably wondering if JSkat is still a living
project, since the last version was released in August 2007. But be
assured: We are still working on JSkat! Unfortunately, we did
not have as much time as we would have liked, so JSkat went on
something similar to a hiatus, but behind the scenes, Jan has done
a major refactoring and implemented a whole new AI player. Due to
the refactoring, the AI players from previous versions do not work
any longer and need some recoding. This is the reason why there
isn't a new release out already. However, we would appreciate
it if you download the release 0.6 to show your interest. And
feedback is always welcome...